THE STORY BEHIND THE EMERGING NETWORK

From 2003-2004, 47 Christian leaders from diverse communions partnered in a journey to discern the urgent call to faithful Christian witness in a divided world.

The 47 came together as one of 31 Issue Groups at the September 2004 Forum on World Evangelization in Pattya, Thailand, organized by the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization. The Issue Group on Reconciliation included Protestant evangelicals, Pentecostals, and denominational leaders, two Catholic priests, and one Orthodox priest.

In Thailand, the group adopted a Pattaya Covenant, pledging to join in on-going mission. This included forming a global Christian network for reconciliation, and inviting others to join them.

Their Thailand journey ended in a dramatic foot washing before the entire 2004 Forum, between Rwandan Hutu and Tutsi; Israeli and Palestinian; male and female; white, black, and Asian; and Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox clergy. This sign of the church on her knees, washing feet across the boundaries of our divided world, is the vision of the kingdom desperately needed in our time.

The need for an on-going network is expressed in the group's Covenant, to "Work humbly together as servants to seek the church's renewal and to help mobilize the global Christian community to be partners in God's reconciling mission."

A transition team is now working to give shape to the network. Our vision is to form a global Christian community both shaped by a theological vision centered in Scripture and open to the kinds of diverse conversations and provisional partnerships that faithful Christian witness in a divided world calls for, while never surrendering our biblical convictions.